As the hardware used for call set-up in a telecommunications network (e.g. processors and control channels) becomes more powerful, the call set-up procedure can be made ever faster. However, as long as the calls are being set-up for human users, shortening the call set-up delay below a few seconds becomes unobservable and irrelevant to the user. It is an object of the present invention to use this extra time available for call set-up to run the network more efficiently. Use of this extra time allows for decreased blocking of calls and increased flexibility in network operations, at the cost of only slight changes in call set-up procedures.